It’s time to inspire with another edition of the deep league waiver wire. Yay for rhymes.

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Yesterday, I discussed a swath of hitters whose BABIP marks sit significantly higher than their xBABIP. Today, it’s time to look at the underachiever list, which is probably more actionable than the overachievers. Let’s take a gander.

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Last week, I began my examination of in-season BABIP with a look at how the league was utilizing the defensive shift and individual players were being shifted versus last season. It was a precursor to identifying and discussing where hitters currently stand with regards to my new xBABIP equation, which was developed earlier in the year and accounts for defensive shifts. So let’s dive into the hitters who have overachieved the most, meaning their BABIP marks are significantly higher than their xBABIPs.

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At the end of January, I introduced the latest hitter version of xHR/FB, featuring the Statcast fueled metric, Brls/BBE (barrels per batted ball event). I failed to discuss the pitcher side of the ledger, but their barrels against are tracked too, of course. While I haven’t performed any sort of analysis or run a regression, I have to assume that just like for hitters, Brls/BBE allowed by pitchers are going to correlate rather highly with their own HR/FB rates. Unlike for hitters though, it’s probably very inconsistent from year to year, which is why I never bothered to look into it.

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My condolences to myself and all you suffering Mike Trout owners. Since I have only had the chance to complain to one of my best friends, I’ll take this opportunity to whine about how it figures that the first year I ever own Trout he hits the DL for the first time. Cross your fingers that my AL Tout Wars team can hold its top position!

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In early February, I used our Splits Leaderboard to develop the latest xBABIP equation, the first of which that accounts for defensive shifts. I then talked quite a bit about defensive shifts over the years and how its usage has risen significantly since 2012. So let’s take a look at the fantasy relevant names that have faced a defensive shift far more often than last year, as well as those that have seen fewer of them during their plate appearances.

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Last week, I discussed five surprising American League starting pitchers sitting among the leaders in SwStk%. All of them had enjoyed surging versus 2016. Today, I’ll discuss pitchers on the other side of the coin, surprises toward the bottom of the SwStk% leaderboard, all of whom have suffered declines compared to last season.

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Feeling the injury or underperformance blues? It’s your lucky day!

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Yesterday, I used my xHR/FB rate to validate which of the surprise HR/FB rate leaders appear to have legitimately enjoyed a power surge in the early going. Today, I’ll look at the surprising names closer to the bottom of the HR/FB rate leaderboard, all of whom are validated by shockingly low xHR/FB rate marks. Like for the leaders, this doesn’t necessarily mean it’s panic time if you’re an owner, but simply that it appears poor fortune has little to do with the power outage. The batter simply hasn’t been barreling it up like he typically has, for whatever reason.

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For the third week in a row, we once again use Statcast’s Brls/BBE (barrels per batted ball event) as the primary component of my xHR/FB rate, to analyze hitter HR/FB rates. Today, I’ll use xHR/FB rate to validate some of the surprise HR/FB rate leaders. This doesn’t necessarily mean the hitter is going to sustain this pace — their Brls/BBE could certainly decline, and given that it’s likely quite high now, it probably will — but that what has happened so far looks like a legitimate power breakout, rather than a small sample fluke.

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